Dr. Heather Beck had been on the job exactly one day when her people reached out. She wanted a sit-down. Superintendent to sports columnist.

What do you do when you take a job and realize the embarrassing mess that is Lakeridge High School football is now your problem?

"You open the hydrant and start drinking," said Beck.

We sat down on Thursday, exactly one month after Beck moved to Lake Oswego from Jefferson County, Colo., the district where Columbine happened (1999). We talked about how the educational world has changed. We talked about the Oakland A's-coined "Moneyball" philosophy, and about the San Antonio Spurs, and at some point, I asked her, "Why was it so important that you talked with me?"

She said, "I want to know what's hidden under the rocks."

Lakeridge High's football program embarrassed itself last season. It committed 41 personal fouls, 21 unsportsmanlike conduct calls and averaged 150 penalty yards per game. The OSAA sanctioned and fined Lakeridge $9,750 after an inquiry uncovered that none of the 14 football coaches on staff, including athletic director Ian Lamont, had bothered to get certification.

Bob Wellnitz, who served as commissioner of the Portland Football Officials Association for the last four decades said, "I have been involved in football for 58 years as a player, coach and an official. This is without a doubt the biggest fiasco by a high school, as a team, I have ever seen or heard about in the state of Oregon."

Lakeridge High had a volunteer coach allegedly punch a player in practice and is now being sued over the incident. It had a troubling flood of transfers to the school who suited up. It had a coach on staff, Chad Carlson, who had a disappointing alcohol-related brush with police on a MAX platform in 2009 and now, a Svengali-like influence on a few key Lakeridge High boosters and the school principal, Jennifer Schiele.

Dr. Beck and I sat outside at Starbucks on State Street in downtown Lake Oswego. I found her intelligent, humble and personable. She served as chief academic officer in her prior job and will soon push the teachers in her new district to more skillfully analyze and utilize data to steer their classrooms. She has two sisters who live in Vancouver, and when a couple of passersby stopped to say hello to us as we talked, she stood to shake their hand. But what I was impressed with more than anything is that for the first time in any of this Lakeridge High mess I heard an adult in charge say what needed to be said long ago.

"This stops now."

She said it a number of times, in a variety of ways. She said it with conviction. She said it laced with disappointment. She said it like a woman who understood as she read about Lakeridge High's football program from afar that this was not going to be something that needed to turn around over a period of one or two seasons.

The turnaround is now — or else.

Dr. Beck told me that she sat in on Carlson's job interview during one of her job-interview visits to Lake Oswego months ago, shadowing then-superintendent Bill Korach. She saw straight through Carlson's act, even as the district somehow decided to bring him back as the de facto coach. He's currently coaching alongside Lakeridge High vice principal John Parke like a pirate who somehow found a way to sit on the shoulder of the parrot.

I told the superintendent that Parke's reported DUI in 2009 wasn't why the move to hire him as interim coach bothered me so much. The hiring process was a joke, after all. Qualified candidates who cared deeply about coaching at Lakeridge High were given hollow interviews, leaving the district vulnerable to grievances.

One such candidate, Brigham Baker, was coming off a successful seven-year stint as the coach at Estacada High. He's the son of longtime Oregon football coach Ray Baker. Brigham was even recommended to Korach by well-respected Lake Oswego High coach Steve Coury. He was rushed through a hasty interview on Easter Sunday at 5 p.m. Those who were interviewed were asked, "Would you take Chad Carlson as a coordinator?"

Baker has since been hired as the athletic director at Lake Oswego High.

I told Dr. Beck that I'd intentionally left the vice principal's DUI out of both of my previous columns on Lakeridge High because I felt it distracted from the conversation. The bigger issue was top-down leadership. The power hierarchy at the school had long ago fallen woefully of out balance to the detriment of students and the football program.

Beck cut me off.

"The DUI doesn't bother you? It bothers me."

Dr. Beck is going to be a terrific influence, particularly on the 39-year old Schiele, who needs to understand that she must always be more influential in her community than the campus football coach. Beck is going to be great, too, for the silent majority of boosters at Lakeridge who have long watched the vocal minority walk the community as if it were some glorified high school hallway. The greatest asset Lakeridge has today is a passionate community that cares so deeply about that school.

She has a series of meetings on her calendar, including one with Tom Welter, head of the OSAA. Also, she'll meet with Lakeridge High staffers, her school board and just about everyone involved in this. I know Dr. Beck feels like she's opened the hydrant, but I'd argue that it's coffee, not water, she's mostly drinking.

In the end, bet on this: Dr. Beck is going be wonderful for students. She said it over and over, "I'm here for the students ... I'm in this for the kids, not some football coach ... I'm going to be sure they're getting the best education they can possibly receive ..."